Federation
by jsk
Summary: A story about when the Giuls invaded a world...


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DISCLAIMER: "Star Trek" is the copyrighted by Paramount, and Paramount  
owns Star Trek and the Star Trek Universe. The following story is   
not-for-profit.  
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Federation  
----------  
(c) Jasjit Singh, April 1999  
  
My name is Shu'ari. I am mother now, of two beautiful young boys.  
Watching them grow gives me great joy. We live in a peaceful society on a  
planet known as Aheura. Our people are not a space-faring race. We had  
at one time, pursued technological advancement, but the community elders  
saw what it was doing to our community, and decided to pursue another  
path, one of unification with the nature of our planet, and the land, and  
the community. We did not venture outside of our own solar system. We  
did not inhabit other planets. We stayed on Aheura, and lived our lives,  
generation after generation.   
  
My tale begins, when I was a growing girl, living in my father's house.  
He was a farmer, and tilled the soil from the rising of our sun to the  
rising of the two moons. He worked very hard to provide for his family.  
My mother sold rugs which she knitted herself. I would often run to the  
marketplace to hide in her stall when I wanted to be alone, and she would  
laugh and ruffle my hair when she noticed my crouching under the stall,  
trying to hide.  
  
When the Giul's came, we did not know that they had come to invade our  
world, and enslave our people. We welcomed them as visitors and offered  
them our hospitality. In return they showed us only cruelty. I remember  
the day when they arrived on Aheura. They materialized in the center of  
the marketplace, dressed in their khaki military uniforms, and bearing  
powerful weapons. They stood three heads taller than our tallest men, and  
wore strange helmets that prevented us from seeing their faces. They  
began to shoot with their weapons. There was screaming, I remember. Many  
people fell, others ran for shelter, some falling flat on their faces as  
they were shot from behind. My mother bundled me up urgently in a blanket  
and carried me with her, away from the marketplace, and away from the  
firing and screaming people. When we were in relative safety, she set me  
down and told me to run home and tell the others what had happened. I  
remember crying. I remember telling her that I didn't want to leave,  
didn't want to be alone without her. She smiled her warm, loving smile at  
me, wiping my tears away from my cheek with her hand.  
"Now there, Shu'ari," she said, "daughter. Be brave. You are your  
fathers daughter, strong and proud. You will see me again, of that I  
promise. Go now, and best speed."  
  
I nodded, and ran as fast as my legs would carry me, all the way home, not  
stopping to pause or think. When I arrived, breathless and sweating, my  
father was seated at the table, contemplating.  
"Father!" I cried. "There is an attack in the marketplace. Mother is  
alone!"  
He immediately stood up, and told me to stay with my brothers, in the  
house, and not open the door for any one. He left to search for my  
mother. He returned late, alone. She did not return to us, ever again.  
We did not see her or hear of what happened to her. I still grieve today.  
  
The Giul's were a savage race. They did not care for the suffering of our  
people. They established guard posts at every major junction in our  
cities, and sentries would be patrolling the areas. We had no weapons or  
skill in fighting. Our people were farmers, and poets. We did not know  
how to fight back. The Giul's took the men from the cities, my eldest  
brother among them. They left my father because he was elderly, and not  
fit enough for their labor camps. The young men were taken to the edges  
of our cities, to the mines the Giul's had established, and forced to work  
long arduous hours, and given little in the way of food or comfort. I  
wept for my brother. I did not see him for several months, and heard no  
news. I feared the worst.  
  
The Giul occupation lasted several months. I recall little of the  
political issues involved, but I seem to remember my father talking to one  
of our neighbours, about why the Giul's came to our homeworld. They were  
a technologically advanced species, but their ships relied on a technology  
which was dependant on a certain type of crystal. This crystal was very  
rare in the galaxy, but very abundant in raw ore on Aheura. The Giul's  
did not desire to trade or barter for the ore; they were a warlike people,  
savage and ruthless, and when they saw the opportunity to take what they  
needed, instead of pay for it, they took advantage of it.  
"Barbarians," my father had said, shaking his head, "to attack an unarmed,  
peaceful people."  
  
The Giul's were firmly entrenched on Aheura, and did not seem to be going  
anywhere. For an old man like my father, and a young girl like me, they  
had no use, so they left us alone mostly. My father still tilled the  
soil, from sunrise to moons-rise. But there was a sadness in him, with my  
mother gone, and now my brothers too. Until there was only the two of us  
left in the quiet house. I would bring the water from the wells, far  
outside of the city, back home, and on my path I would have to pass  
several Giul sentries. They scarcely looked at me. But they always had  
their weapons charged.  
  
And then one day, while I was out at the well, struggling to pull up the  
filled water-bucket, I heard a commotion. I looked behind me, and saw  
that the Giul soldiers were moving around, as if someone, or something had  
taken them by surprise. They were running. And then I heard phasor fire.  
I dropped my water-buckets, and ran back to the marketplace. My father  
was among a crowd of our people, calling my name.  
"Father!" I cried, running to him. He hugged me and led me to a safe  
shelter a little way away from the main marketplace.  
"What is it, father?" I asked him, concerned. He was looking out towards  
the streets in anticipation.  
"I am not sure, Shu'ari. The Giul's are worried. Something is happening.  
Their plans have been upset. Look, up at the sky."  
I looked up, and saw several brilliant flashes in the sky.  
"What does it mean?" I asked in awe.  
"Their ships have been in orbit since they arrived on our planet. Now  
their ships are fighting, it looks like they have some unplanned  
visitors."  
I looked around, at the milling crowd which was beginning to dissipate,  
and the Giul soldiers taking up positions. Eventually, the commotion  
subsided and a tense silence fell. The marketplace was still, and the  
Giul soldiers stood or sat with their weapons at the ready. But for what?  
  
My question was answered moments later when a group of people materialized  
in the middle of the market square. They were different from the Giuls.  
They wore colored uniforms, black and gold, black and grey, black and red.  
They also had weapons, but different from the Giuls. The first group of  
people that landed in the market square were immediately killed by a  
barrage of Giul fire. They all fell.  
  
But another group arrived, a short distance away, and they were able to  
dodge the Giul fire. They fired back with their weapons, and took up  
position. Many more seemed to land at different locations. The Giuls  
were now facing an enemy with weapons.  
"Let's see how they do against the strangers!" I cried.  
  
  
The Giuls were vicious. When their firearms failed them, they used  
knives and swords, and attacked the strangers with anger. They were  
physically stronger than the strangers, and often were able to kill them  
quickly. The marketplace was littered with dismembered corpses of the the  
colored uniform strangers. They bled red blood. It flowed in the street  
like a river.  
  
And yet the Giuls would not be stopped. But the strangers took position a  
little farther north of the city, near the well where I used to get the  
water from, and set up an offensive from there. When they could no longer  
fight with their energy weapons, they came running towards the Giuls with  
long hand weapons which I later learned were known as Klingon Bat'leths.  
They came screaming and yelling, even as their comrades fell from Giul  
fire. But they did not stop. They leaped and jumped over their friends'  
corpses, and kept coming. Until they were close enough to the Giuls to  
engage them in hand-to-hand combat. Those who had lost their bat'leths  
used anything they could get their hands on; I saw one man in a torn  
uniform, blood streaming down his face, get up with a tree branch in his  
hand, and swing it at the astonished Giul soldier.  
  
  
As we watched, our shelter was blown by a Giul weapon. We were in the  
open. My father gathered me in his arms to protect me, as a Giul soldier  
towered above us, and seemed to notice us for the first time. He raised  
his weapon to me.  
"Cover your eyes, child," my father whispered to me, putting his hand over  
my eyes.  
  
I heard a strange voice yelling out. And then the Giul weapon firing. I  
jumped. But I had not been hit. I opened my eyes to see the Giul soldier  
on the ground, limp and motionless, and on top of him, with a knife, a man  
in a black and blue uniform. The knife he held was dripping blood. He  
turned to us, wild-eyed.  
"I am a doctor," he said, "are you alright?"  
My father grinned at him. "If you are a doctor, you have a strange way of  
practicing medicine."  
The doctor looked down at the dead Giul soldier.  
"Yes," he nodded. "We were running short of men. We had to use every  
officer available."  
  
It ended shortly afterwards. The Giuls that survived retreated hastily   
to their ships, and left our solar system. The strangers buried their  
dead with great ceremony. There were so many of them that it took two  
entire fields. My father allowed them to use his land. He felt that it  
was the least that he could do for them, for driving away the Giuls.  
"What will you do now?" one of the strangers had asked my father.  
"We will rebuild our society, our culture, or way of life," my father had  
answered. "It will take many years, but we do have a hope for the future.  
We have the children, like Shu'ari here."  
  
The man looked down at me, and smiled. He had a black and red uniform on,  
and his face was bruised from the fighting, but he still had a twinkle in  
his eye. He squatted down so that I did not have to crane my neck to look  
up at him.  
  
I gave him the flower I had plucked from the fields.  
"Thank you," he said.  
  
"Who are you?" one of our people had asked him later on. "Why did you  
die to free us?"  
He had replied with a smile.  
"We are the Federation. It is what we believe in."  
  
When the strangers had left, I saw my brother again. I was deliriously  
happy that he was still alive. And we began the slow process of  
re-building our society, and our world.  
  
  
T h e E n d  
(c) Jasjit Singh, 1999  
  



End file.
